I will never work for Facebook. I think it's the most evil product and company that exists and that it has hurt humanity significantly more than it has helped.
That doesn't mean each individual part of FB is evil. I'm sure there are some good-willing people and a great projects going on inside. But I could never live with myself supporting a product like this, even just by association.
You think Facebook has a more evil product than, say from the military industrial complex, tabacco or big oil?
Their products kill people literally every day.
> big oil? Their products kill people literally every day.
Does oil kill more people than lack of oil though? How many people would starve without synthetic fertilizers (made from oil) and without oil-powered farming equipment?
Yes, I personally think so. It's a difficult comparison because the effects of Facebook are not obvious physically, like e.g. tobacco is. That makes it even more dangerous because it seems safe. But the negative effects of mental health and misinformation (politics, health, etc) also indirectly kill people or make them miserable, it's just not a direct association that's easy to measure. These effects probably have a larger negative impact on the world overall than something simple with obvious effects like tobacco.
Its not about more/less evil and ranking, its a simple question of would you refuse to work for X.
I've been approached by FB recruiters, or their bots probably, and simply ignore them. The way I determine a gut reaction answer to "would you work for X?" is how you would feel answering when someone asks what you do for a living. I'd feel queasy saying I worked for FB because I feel that they indirectly cause massive harm to society for profits.
Fb has been sending me a lot of interview requests for product manager roles lately, it kind of feels like they're looking for a patsy to "take the fall" on their past practices I must say... Even though the salaries look good, I wouldn't want to have to go in front of congress and testify for decisions I never made on the job. Hard pass. :(
I also got a call years ago from a company once to develop pr0n web sites for a pretty good annual salary (around 200k base), but turned them down after my interviewer kept laughing during the interview... I felt the work environment would be too distracting on a daily basis... :/
As someone living in Japan, none of this has been true for for me. Except for the driving license part, I can't comment on that since I never tried to get one. Perhaps it was like this 10 years ago or may be the case in rural areas, but life in Tokyo is pretty hassle and paperwork free.
I also had never had problems with soundproofing. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised how super soundproof everything was compared to the places I lived in in the U.S. But I've only ever lived in newer apartment buildings, not the old ones.
Maybe unpopular opinion: Either do the same or leave if you cannot handle it.
What you're running into is mismatched incentives. Why would they even care about making the code nicer? It has mostly downsides. So the company can move faster? They don't care because they still get paid the same. It's not their company. Refactoring takes time and doesn't show up on most performance reviews. It's the gmail affect - you get promoted when you ship new features and make a "new version of something" - not by fixing old code. Cleaning up code also has the downside that the original authors are now replaceable because more people can understand it.
By trying to change this you are probably just hurting yourself. You are making enemies and annoying people and are not benefitting anyone.
This is pretty common in FAANG, but it's not like this in all teams. It depends on the team more than the company. There are some teams that are more "startup-like" where incentives are a bit more aligned. Maybe you can transfer.
I recommend Thailand. I don't live there anymore but I used to. It's very doable to live on $1000/mo if you don't live in the center of Bangkok (try Chiang Mai) and eat local food. You have the added bonus of a huge expat and digital nomad community, including many game developers, and no problems doing everything in English. Most things are no-hassle, no big deposits, etc, you just pay, and that's it.
This. Living (even partially) overseas as someone who was born in the U.S. has so many disadvantages. The U.S. is the only country in the world that imposes global tax. Not only that, taxes are really complex and cost a fortune to file if you have overseas assets. Now, add to that that I cannot sign up for many bank accounts or other financial institutions because they don't accept U.S. customers - they don't want to deal with IRS filings either. It's not about tax evasion. It's just a huge pain being an American that owns property and spends a lot of time overseas.
At some point, depending on how much time you spent overseas and how many assets you own, the benefits of giving up US citizenship start to outweigh the cons. And it's better to do this soon than later because exit tax is a thing.
That doesn't mean each individual part of FB is evil. I'm sure there are some good-willing people and a great projects going on inside. But I could never live with myself supporting a product like this, even just by association.